[turc1656]

They're only good because they were repeatedly given an infinite amount of money for 2 decades by investors while their retail operations lost money so that they could nail the implementation and the promise that they would figure out how to make it profitable.

[adenverd]

Amazon effectively leveraged investment capital to do exactly what they said they would do - innovate, learn into the market, and improve iteratively. From investors' perspectives (and probably consumers' perspectives as well), Amazon has succeeded brilliantly.

[thu2111]

You talk as if Amazon was like an Uber or WeWork. That's really far from the truth.

Amazon were slightly profitable or break-even since 2003. There's a convenient chart of their profits since day one here:

https://qz.com/1196256/it-took-amazon-amzn-14-years-to-make-...

Starting in 1997 they bled money with mounting losses until about 1999, when they began to turn things around. The dotcom pop is clearly visible but they recovered almost immediately and their losses continued to shrink until about 2001-2002 when they became break even. From 2002-2011 they either made small profits or nothing, but that was obviously because they were growing at a rapid pace and putting all the money back into the business. Once AWS launches in 2006 (so about 10 years after day 1 in retail) profits start growing but then are back into the red around the time of the GFC+recession, and again in the 2012-2013 European recession. After that it's stratospheric profits.

How much investor money is "infinite money"? Somewhere between $8-$9 million before they floated on the stock market.

https://www.quora.com/Who-were-the-original-investors-in-Ama...

Obviously, investors who put money into their IPO have done extremely well and cannot claim they were shovelling money into a furnace, far from it.

The inflation in investment round sizes over the past 20 years has been staggering. I see nothing that suggests Amazon was unusual in raising so little money (comparatively speaking) before they went public.

[jacobwilliamroy]

Did they really nail the implementation? I still refuse to buy anything that would go on or inside my body from amazon because I'm worried about getting counterfeits.

[WalterBright]

I.e. Amazon has long term thinking.

[elcritch]

Surprise, when executed well it leads to long term value.

[optimuspaul]

They only lose money on paper. Pouring all the returns back into the business is a very sound business plan.